Chiang Kai-Shek

Chiang Kai-Shek 1887-1975

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese political and military leader who took power after the death of Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925). Born into a salt-merchant family in Zhejiang province, Chiang’s education included a military academy in Japan from 1908 to 1910, during which time he joined the anti-Manchu movement called the Revolutionary Alliance and became a disciple of Sun, the leader of Guomindang, the Nationalist Party.

In 1923 Sun took Russian advice to accept the Chinese Communist Party as an ally for his cause of national revolution and sent Chiang to the Soviet Union for military training. Upon his return Chiang was appointed head of the Whampoa Military Academy, which later became the most important political capital for Chiang, as many cadets had a personal allegiance to him. In 1925, upon Sun’s death, Chiang became the new leader in the Guomindang and soon launched the Northern Expedition (1926-1928), the military campaign against the northern warlords, to unify the country. After a military success Chiang decided that he could not tolerate the Communists, who had been his ally during the expedition but who also began to encourage workers and peasants to launch a social revolution. He ordered a bloody suppression of Communists and labor activists in Shanghai, and his cooperation with the Communists was broken. Chiang established the Nationalist Government in Nanjing on April 28, 1927, six days after the Shanghai massacre.

Chiang’s government made efforts to modernize the country, and his governing ideology was a mixture of Confucianism and European fascism. But Chiang faced challenges both at home and from abroad. In 1931 the Japanese occupied Manchuria by force and created a national crisis for Chiang, who decided to take issue with the Communists first before facing foreign invaders. The Communists, led by Mao Zedong, established rural bases through a policy of land redistribution. Despite continuous suppression from the government, the Communists survived and received popular support, first in Jiangxi in the southeast then, after the Long March, in Shaanxi in the northwest. In December 1936 Chiang was kidnapped in Xian by his military deputy, Zhang Xueliang (1898-2001), who resented Chiang’s policy of not fighting the Japanese. The crisis ended peacefully as Chiang agreed to work with the Communists in fighting the common enemy. During the second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Chiang remained China’s national leader although the country was divided. The United States and China became allies during the war, but Chiang had a rocky relationship with his chief of allied staff, American general Joseph Stilwell (1883-1946), who was finally recalled by Washington in 1944. The American advisors were dismayed by the corruption of Chiang’s government, as well as its ignorance and indifference.

Under Mao’s leadership the Communists grew stronger during the war. Civil war broke out between Chiang’s government and the Communists soon after World War II ended. Despite strong American financial and military support, Chiang lost the war, and his government was forced from the mainland to Taiwan. Chiang remained the president of the Guomindang Government, an authoritarian regime long supported by the United States, until his death in 1975.

SEE ALSO Mao Zedong; Sun Yat-sen

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fairbank, John King, and Albert Feuerwerker, eds. 1986. Republican China. Vol. 13 of The Cambridge History of China. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kan Liang